26 (29) Raptors 1-1 The highlight of the Raptors' start was not their rout of Cleveland. Not to us. Not when Reggie Evans morphed into Dennis Rodman and totaled 30 rebounds -- with just two points -- in Toronto's opening two games.

just looked at it and nothing really surprising there. Something tells me looking at these lists all year long is going to be annoying as far Raps fans are concerned. more annoying than usual at least although this time around it will likely be hard to disagree.

Reggie is an emotion-type player... this small taste of fame and bandwagon media jolt can only do good things for his confidence and may turn out to be a huge kick in the pants needed to morph him into a serious rebounding master.

Reggie is an emotion-type player... this small taste of fame and bandwagon media jolt can only do good things for his confidence and may turn out to be a huge kick in the pants needed to morph him into a serious rebounding master.

This really isn't new for Evans...he's always been among league leaders in rebounding per 48 mins. He's just never gotten a serious amount of minutes(says a bit about the quality of our roster admittedly). The difference this year is his conditioning and buyin to kick the ball out...oh and it's a contract year for him

Yes, it's the smallest sample size ever, but Toronto is the third best defensive team in the NBA! Don't worry about an explanation for the complete statistical flip-flop, just take this time to celebrate the Raptors' defensive dominance before they play eight of their next 10 on the road.

Hate to burst people's bubble, but the only team's they have ranked below the Raptors have gone 0-3. The 0-2 Wizards and a bunch of 1-2 teams including the Cav's (who we totally demolished) are still ranked above us.

ESPN still has no love for us, they just couldn't rank us below 0-3 teams and still pretend to be legitimate and unbiased.

Hate to burst people's bubble, but the only team's they have ranked below the Raptors have gone 0-3. The 0-2 Wizards and a bunch of 1-2 teams including the Cav's (who we totally demolished) are still ranked above us.

ESPN still has no love for us, they just couldn't rank us below 0-3 teams and still pretend to be legitimate and unbiased.

i don't buy that entirely. stein, the only espn writer involved in these power rankings, has always had good things to say about toronto. he likes the city, the team, and all kinds of players that have played here. he has consistently written positive things about the raps.

you're right that they only put 0-3 teams below us, but this has nothing to do with anti-toronto bias from stein. he's the last espn writer i would accuse of doing that.

ok, he thinks they are better. that's how. the espn power rankings are a completely subjective non-scientific list that stein writes based on his own opinion. people put lots of stock into them, but they are nothing but the educated guesses of one writer. 'espn's bias' is irrelevant here. stein's is very relevant, though, as it is the basis of the rankings each week. and if you take a look at the history of stein's writing, he's been a consistent raps supporter for years.

edit - here's an example from this year's training camp ranking. he always talks about his 'committee of one', as a tongue in cheek joke about how this is entirely his own subjective opinion. here he acknowledges that we will be bad this year but still has something positive to say about the city. :

Quote:

Something tells me the combo of Hedo's departure and the usual longings here about moving the committee's offices to Toronto won't bring nearly enough comfort to our Canadian friends. Not after L'Affaire Bosh.